Featuring a separate appendix on the latest “Atkins” craze–The Paleo Diet

See link at end of article to purchase on Amazon.

A small book that can he read in one-hour, Dr. Campbell once again provides “clarity over confusion” as he explains why we rarely hear anything from the mainstream system about the miraculous healing powers of a whole food, plant-based diet.

He succinctly describes those powers in the included Introduction to his second book, Whole, Rethinking the Science of Nutrition. It was in this section that I found this powerful statement:

If you want to live free of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes for your entire life, that power is in your hands (and your knife and fork). But sadly, medical schools, hospitals, and government health agencies continue to treat nutrition as if it plays only a minor role in health. And no wonder: the standard Western diet, along with its trendy “low-fat” and “low-carb” cousins, is actually the cause, not the cure, of most of what ails us.

In a nutshell, the “miracle cure” science has been chasing for the past half century turns out not to be a new wonder drug painstakingly formulated after decades of brilliant and relentless lab work or a cutting-edge surgical tool or technique using lasers and nanotechnology or some transformation of our DNA that will turn us all into immortal Apollos and Venuses. Instead, the secret of health has been in front of us all along, in the guise of a simple and perhaps boring word: nutrition.

When it comes to our health, it turns out the trump card is the food we put in our mouths each day. In the process of learning all this, I also learned something else very important: why most people didn’t know this already.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry, Cornell University—author of The China Study

So how can something so simple and so powerful be ignored by so many? As we learned in The China Study and in Whole, the short answer is money. There is simply no money to be made in people getting healthy—the money is in managing disease.

And as Dr. Campbell says in this latest book, trillions of dollars will be lost in our food, medical and pharmaceutical industries if there is a sudden shift in the direction of a health-promoting, whole food, plant-based diet. So, what can we do?

We can fight money with money. For the past year, I have shifted my primary focus to how our food choices impact the long-term sustainability of our ecosystem, our civilization and ultimately, our species. And, during that time, I have come to agree with Dr. Stephen Emmott (Ten Billion) that the human race is doomed (he used a different word), unless we make some HUGE changes quickly. He seemed to agree with me that the ONLY major change that we can make quickly enough to make much of a difference is to change what we eat.

Fortunately, that involves the biggest “win-win” proposition in the history of humankind. The same food choices that promote vibrant health and will eliminate over 70% of our medical conditions and costs—are the same food choices that will enable us to curb global warming, solve the water crisis, end the destruction of rainforest and feed the world’s hungry. How do we make that happen?

Dr. Campbell says we must study the entire human body to understand how nutrition works.

One powerful leader and a few caring billionaires. Until proven otherwise, I will continue to pursue the path of helping at least one powerful leader and a few caring billionaires “catch the vision” of what must be done. Powerful leadership with enough money can be highly influential in changing the eating habits in the regions of the world where most of the meat, dairy, eggs and fish (MDEF) are being eaten. The top five are China, Europe, USA, Russia and Brazil—where over 70% of the world’s meat is consumed.

And since the rest of the world tends to follow the wealthier nations, we’ll soon be able to able to change eating habits everywhere. How much will it cost? My guess is somewhere between one hundred billion and one trillion dollars.

Sound like a lot of money to you? True, but when you consider that a relatively obscure internet app (WhatsApp) recently sold for $19 Billion, it begs the question?

Which is worth more? WhatsApp or planet Earth?

So, assuming we can find the $100 billion, how do we spend it? We prepare our powerful message of truth and we take it directly to the consumers of the world—bypassing governments, industries and institutions. I like to call it a Never-Ending MASSIVE Global Awareness Campaign aimed at telling people the simple truth about nutrition as stated by Dr. Campbell above.

In addition, massive funding will be needed to quickly educate the physicians of the world relative to the powerful health benefits of a whole food, plant-based diet. For, without the eventual voice of medicine onboard and promoting patient adoption—this essential dietary shift on a broad, global scale will be elusive.

Substantial funding of non-profit organizations like these two will be needed soon:

T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, whose stated mission is to promote optimal nutrition through science-based education, advocacy, and research. By empowering individuals and health professionals, we aim to improve personal, public, and environmental health.

The Plantrician Project, with a mission to educate, equip and empower our physicians and healthcare practitioners with knowledge about the indisputable benefits of plant-based nutrition. To provide them with the resources with which they, in turn, can use to empower and inspire their patients to shift from the harmful typical Western diet to a life-changing whole food, plant-based way of living. (The website for this important initiative will be up soon and I will alert you at that time.)

“The closer we get to eating a diet of whole, plant-based foods, the better off we will be.” — T. Colin Campbell

One more thing; some news about 4Leaf. I am pleased to announce that our 4Leaf for Life concept of healthy eating AND our 4Leaf Survey will soon be part of Dr. Campbell’s eCornell plant-based nutrition course. Hopefully, people around the world may soon be able take this survey electronically (for free) on the TCC Center for Nutrition Studies website.

The 4Leaf concept first appeared in Chapter 10 of our book (October 2011, BenBella Books), and the 4Leaf Survey first appeared on this website in March of 2012. It is now a registered trademark.

Full disclosure, I am a co-founder of Plantrician and have been a board member of the TCC Center for Nutrition Studies since February of 2012. As the creator and owner of the 4Leaf intellectual property, I will not derive any financial gain from having it appear on the TCCCNS website or the eCornell learning platform.

A few of my earlier blogs that are relevant to this blogpost:

• First, click here to purchase Colin’s The Low-Carb Fraud on Amazon.
• Just ONE powerful leader and a few caring billionaires (posted on 5-27-14)
• NOTHING is more important than SUSTAINABILITY! (posted on 1-25-14)

The following five books and one DVD can be purchased on Amazon for a grand total of less than $60—and will enable you to understand the overwhelming challenges we face—along with the single most-powerful solution of all.

Six-Pack from Hicks—for health, hope & harmony on planet Earth

1. Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The “big picture” about food (our book)
2. A life changer for millions, including James Cameron. Forks Over Knives DVD 
3. An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell; the primary book that influenced Bill Clinton to adopt a whole food, plant-based diet.
4. What have we done to our planet? Full Planet, Empty Plates by Lester Brown
5. A horrifying wake-up call for leaders. TEN BILLION by Dr. Stephen Emmott
6. Food choices are the primary cause of our environmental problems, yet our world leaders, scientists & experts are Comfortably Unaware, by Richard Oppenlander.

Why should we be eating mostly plants? The “big picture” in 4 minutes.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Survey. It takes 2 or 3 minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, visit our 4Leaf page and also enjoy some great recipes from Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen. Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member since 2012; click banner for more info: